Welcome to "Dust, Tears & Dice", a blog dedicated to the hobby of miniature wargaming.
If you fancy gaming periods off the beaten track then this is the place for you.
I am a regular member of The Wyvern Wargamers, formerly The Evesham Wargames Club drawing gamers from Worcester, Redditch, Kidderminster, Cheltenham and Stratford.
All players welcome.

Monday, August 27, 2012

The mixed bag of Irish Commands, Missile troops and Calivermen are done.

I have added a couple of Byzantine standards, available from Little Big Man Studios these are not historically accurate for the Dark Age Irish, but I they will be good fit to mix with my Spanish Armada Project and portray the Catholic feel to the force.

I set to work on the excellent Warbases, I have purchased several of the movement trays over the years and was looking for a way to combine game systems for my Irish Warband. Martin over at Warbases has done
a great job of turning my rambling e-mail into the real deal, the plan was to turn my single based Leaders and Standard Bears into a Warlord command bases for
SAGA.

The Blank Movement Trays.

Sample Figures as always a perfect fit.

A coat of PVA Glue, a dip in sharp sand and a white undercoat and they are ready for the base coat.

During the various stages above, I set to work on the finer detail of the first batch of Irish, adding in shading and various other touches to bring out the greater detail, disappointing not to get them finished today, but progress neither the less.

Like must projects they don't tend to feel finished until the full highlighting and flesh tones are complete together with basing and flocking.
I should be able to grab a few hours tomorrow to finish these and the command bases off.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Day 22 draws to a close and I am reasonably pleased with the results so far.

All the foot and Mounted are cleaned up, based and under coated, the figurers are a collection of manufacturers, Gripping Beast, Crusader and Redoubt were up to their usual standard being relatively flash free.

Sgt Major Miniatures took the bulk of the morning to clean up, the casting were not as crisp as the Vendal days. with each figure requiring the hands to be drilled out, all of the excessive flash cut away and the bases filed down so they could be attached to the bases.

It's a real shame as the poses and castings are really good, they should look ok when painted and based with the others, but frustrating to see the detail fading from when they were first released.

I will paint these as a second batch.

First up the Standard Bearers, Musicians, a few slingers and some Calivermen to turn the Dark Age Irish into Elizabethan Irish.

I applied a base colour coat to the tunics and cloaks of the first 16, at this stage I am not to bothered by the detail just need to get the undercoat applied before pressing on to the detail and inking tomorrow.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Having committed to putting an Irish/Welsh Army for the SAGA Day on the 15th September it dawned upon me that with 22 days to go, a have a significant amount of painting to do if I am to complete everything for the project.

In order to give myself the necessary motivation I thought I would document my efforts over the next few weeks, lets just hope I can get the Wargaming/Work/ Life balance right......

And no one has any plans for me this bank holiday weekend.

Having conducted a muster of what's still needed, I need to complete the following.

25 Foot Figures.

A mixture of Gallowgas and command figures, with a few shotte for good measure (not needed for the SAGA but part of the same colour scheme.)

6 Mounted Figures.

Additional Irish Cavalry from the old Vendal range.

3 Command Movement Trays.

Martin over at Warbases as created me some purpose built bases, more on that later.

2 Fields

I purchased the Perry Medieval fencing several months ago, seems like a good excuse to get them ready for the Saga Day.

If i can complete these I will have enough Irish for the Elizabethan Wars project and suitable variants for a 4-6 Pt SAGA Force.

All started with bare metal and still in their blisters this morning....

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Over at Wyvern Wargamers we like to get together for a summer all dayer, this year we thought we would venture into the world of tournament play, several of us have been building SAGA armies, the game play is quick and fun and we thought it would be a great way of attracting new members and showcasing our facilities.

So it gives me great pleasure to announce the Wyvern Wargamers SAGA Tournement Saturday the 15th September.

More details can be found on our club home page.
www.wyvernwargamers.org.uk

Hot off the Press.....

Mike Hobbs the head UK playtester and one of the
designers for Saga and Muskets and Tomahawks (MikeH on the Studio
Tomahawk forum) is going to attend our all day Saga tournament day. He
has kindly offered to handle rules questions as they come up so will not
be attending as a player but a helper. In addition he will be doing a
15 min talk, during the Lunch hour, on the new Factions that will be
released in the Autumn so we get an idea of what’s coming up next in the
Saga world. He is also able to do some introductions on the Muskets and
Tomahawks system.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Having painted a number of units for the Irish for SAGA and the Elizabethan Project, I thought I would turn my attention to the Spanish Forces of King Phillip.

Whilst
the Spanish of the Armarda period typically wore no uniform apart from a
red sash or arm band for identification, I wanted to apply a common colour scheme
for the various units, albeit slightly different for each section.

Command group and the first unit.

Second Unit.

Unit Three

I am still on the look out for a suitable figure for the Duke of Palma, my Saga Irish will double as Irish mercenaries to help ward off the ‘undone’ or to aid the Spanish in their conquest of Ireland.
Most figures are Foundry with a couple from Sgt Major Miniatures, flags from redoubt.